Saturday, May 19, 2012

Black Sabbath have revealed the identity of the substitute drummer they’ll be using for the semi-Sabbath reunion gigs this year.

The news comes a day after the metal icons removed almost all of Bill Ward’s images from the band’s official website, following word that he will not be joining the group, and on the same day that Sabbath return to Birmingham for their first homecoming show in 13 years.

Bassist Geezer Butler shared the details while commenting on the drama surrounding the metal icons in the past few months.

"I feel sad to see the Sabbath reunion becoming a bit of a soap opera on the internet,” writes Butler. “It has been a very tough year for us as a band, having announced our reunion plans, only for Tony [Iommi] to be diagnosed with lymphoma, leaving us no choice but to postpone the proposed Sabbath tour, and then for Bill to go public on his site about an un-signable contract.”

“None of us knew how Tony was going to respond to his intensive chemo therapy, and radiotherapy. Ozzy [Osbourne] and myself flew to England to be with Tony, and on his 'good' days, we’d meet at his home studio and put ideas together for the upcoming album, all sitting down together, no drummer involved, just three of us quietly putting together ideas. We thought that when we had enough songs together for a full band rehearsal, we’d move back to L.A and put the whole thing together with Bill. Unfortunately, to our surprise, Bill issued a statement on his site saying he’d been offered an un-signable contract. He hadn’t told any one of us he was having contractual problems, and frankly those things are worked out between our representatives, and never between the four of us let alone in public.”

“We had the idea of keeping just one show in this year, hoping that Tony would be well enough for that show, and that things with Bill would be sorted. As you may expect, a one off show at Donington Festival (Download) costs an absolute fortune to stage, involving over 50 people, transport, air fares, hotels, meals, agents, promotors, accountants, lawyers etc, so none of us, expected to make much money from it- it was a one off Sabbath show for the fans, before we go into recording the new album. Apparently, this wasn’t acceptable to Bill’s representatives, they wanted an amount that was so unrealistic that it seemed to have been a joke. So we resigned ourselves to doing Download without Bill, hoping he’d change his mind and at least make a guest appearance.”

“We started rehearsals a few weeks ago with Tommy Clufetos, the drummer who will be on the Ozzy & Friends Tour. Brilliant drummer and good bloke. It was decided we’d better do a warm up show, to break the ice since we haven’t played together live. The O2 Academy was available in Birmingham, where we were rehearsing, so we decided on that, and to make a donation to Help For Heroes Charity, since we’d be ironing out any glitches we may have. Then Bill put out a further statement saying he’d been ready to play the Birmingham show, but he was expected to have to do it 'for free'- well, I think that’s basically how you raise money from gigs for charity – you play them 'for free'.”

“All I am saying is that there are two sides to everything. I do hope to play with Bill again some day. For whatever reason; it wasn’t meant to be this time. Bill’s made his decision, and I have to respect that. Hopefully this painful year will be worth the wait for the new Sabbath album and end in joy and happiness for all.”

Clufetos has been Ozzy’s drummer for the past few years and appeared on his 2010 release, “Scream.”